Day +85

Today's daily photo is brought to you by the Mills family (one of Ariauna's best friends and her family). What a great idea, thank you! For those of you who are not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, this is one of the songs in our Hymn books.

Today makes 114 days away from home. Our day started out pretty lazy today, it seems like we are so late getting to bed every night. I keep trying to get them to bed sooner, but it just doesn't happen. The joys of having 5 of us in the same room to sleep. Austin and Sadie got off to school, and I quietly let Ariauna and Jaxon sleep. Jaxon finally came out to find me, but it wasn't until 9:45 a.m. that Ariauna finally started moving. Here she is all snug as a bug in a rug in bed until almost 10:00 a.m.

We had a pretty quite rest of the day just doing our normal routine at the Ronald McDonald House. We came down stairs for a bit to play in the morning. Jaxon and I hung out down stairs while Ariauna had her tutor were upstairs doing school work. Jaxon actually tried really hard to join Austin doing some science experiments with one of the school volunteers. I finally had to drag Jaxon away, and he was not happy that I wouldn't let him stay to help.

After Ariauna's schooling we went up and I was getting my stuff ready to work and then was going to try to get Jaxon down for a nap. When I turned around, this is what I found. I guess he was going to try to help me do some work phone calls today. He is such a crack up and you can see again, why he is such good medicine for Ariauna. He keeps us laughing and smiling all the time.

I ended up working for awhile this afternoon. I had not been working too long when I got a text message from Ronai, a friend we have gotten to know here in MN. She asked me if I could come down and let her in as she had a special delivery for us. I went down and she helped me bring it up to our room. It was a bunch of groceries and goodies from her and my friend LeeAnn at home. It was so sweet of them and I am so grateful. Here are the yummy goodies they brought to us! Thanks again LeeAnn and Ronai!

This afternoon I got a text message from the home health care nurse from Utah that we had prior to coming to Minnesota for transplant. She sent me a picture of Ariauna wondering if it was her, her hair had been cut short since she saw us last. Anyway, long story short she sent a picture of Ariauna the last day of her chemo that has gone all over face book. It is kind of scary to think how many people have seen and liked her picture, but at the same time, reading some of the comments has been very inspiring. (oh and p.s. just for the record, I did not start the post. I had this picture posted on my blog, and someone else helped themselves to my photo. Hence, the reason I do not normally let the public see my blog and another reason why I may switch it back to private before too much longer).

Tonight was a pretty quite night at the RMH. The dinner group that brought dinner, made the most adorable treats for dessert. They were so cute, I had to take a picture of them.

We had dinner and then the kids took Jaxon down to the bounce house that they have set up in the gym to play for awhile. Tonight was suppose to be movie night and the girls were so excited because it was suppose to be High School Musical but then it was cancelled last minute because they had some Marine people coming to do a presentation. So we just hung out and worked on our puzzle and then ended our night changing Ariauna's Hickman line dressing. I hope this next picture does not gross anyone out, but I think it is interesting to see, and how good it looks.

Today I am so grateful for every day that passes by that Ariauna has made it one more day healthy and happy. I am so grateful that she has not had to be readmitted to the hospital at all and will always be grateful for the courageous little girl that she is. She is truly my hero and I look up to her example a lot.